


In Want Of

by Damkianna



Category: Battle Creek (TV)
Genre: Background Case, Confessions, M/M, Post-Canon, Trust Issues, Undercover as Married
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-04-06 04:16:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19055065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Damkianna/pseuds/Damkianna
Summary: "Why, hello there, Mr. and Mr—Baumgartner?""Yeah," Russ bites out. "That's us."





	In Want Of

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jedibuttercup](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedibuttercup/gifts).



> So this is kind of casefic, but also very tropey, which I hope is a combination you'll enjoy. :D Thank you so much for your enthusiasm for this fandom, jedibuttercup, and I hope you've had a wonderful Fandom5K! The title is, of course, borrowed from the first line of Pride & Prejudice.

 

 

"Why, hello there, Mr. and Mr—Baumgartner?"

"Yeah," Russ bites out. "That's us."

The receptionist behind the desk—first name Sophia, last name a revoltingly cheerful hand-drawn daisy, judging by the nametag pinned to her baby-blue blouse—beams at him pleasantly, undented.

"Wonderful!" she says warmly, and does something on her computer back there. Probably minimizing the game of Solitaire she was playing, Russ thinks meanly. "We're so glad you could join us for this year's Reset, Reconnect, and Rekindle Retreat. Welcome to Crystal Shores Resort & Spa—" Russ can absolutely _hear_ the fucking ampersand— "and thank you for coming. Let me just get you checked in, and then someone will show you to your room!"

Jesus Christ.

"Thank you so much," Milt says, in that warm mild way that sounds so excruciatingly sincere if you don't actually know him at all.

God. Russ wishes grimly for death to take him. He gets some satisfaction out of imagining the entire lobby, in all its soothing earth-toned sunlit glass-bricked coziness, spontaneously bursting into flames.

And then, _finally_ , Milt is done courteously reciting their very falsified personal information. Sophia Hand-Drawn Daisy hands him his extremely fake ID back with a brilliant smile, expressing no amusement whatsoever at the idea that the man in front of her is named Milton Chesterton Baumgartner. (They maybe shouldn't have let Font come up with their undercover identities.) She's probably a robot. Or stoned.

Milt smiles right back at her, and then drops a casually affectionate hand onto Russ's shoulder—the one with the fucking ring on it, just to really draw a line under it—and squeezes, and says, "We were so glad to hear a space had opened up in this year's program. We didn't think there was any chance we'd make it off the waiting list, especially not once the retreat had already started."

Russ grits his teeth and forces himself not to smack Milt's stupid hand off him, and waits for it—because, yeah, that finally dims the force of Sophia's cheer a little, the barest strain starting to show through in the line of her mouth, at the corners of her eyes.

"Sometimes the universe opens doors for us that we don't see coming!" she says, and then clears her throat. "Of course the other couples have already met each other and gotten settled, and oriented themselves to the rhythm of the retreat schedule; but I'm sure you won't have any trouble fitting in."

Figures. Russ swallows down a grim laugh.

It isn't like there was any real chance she was going to say, _Yeah, well, some guy got murdered on the grounds, and his wife didn't exactly feel like hanging around here afterward, so we needed a new pair of chumps to shell out for another week getting told to center themselves and speak from the heart. Suckers!_

Just Russ's luck that this poor schmuck Swenson had snuffed it _here_ , of all places. Any other time he might have been happy with the excuse to hang around investigating a murder at a resort. Step up from their usual, right?

Except this isn't even their case. Or at least it shouldn't have been. Guz had called them into her office and talked a great game about intrastate cooperation between departments, that that whole "protect and serve" thing didn't end at the Battle Creek city limits. And of course Milt had nodded, earnest, soaking in every word, like he didn't have a clue what a pile of bullshit it was—

But never mind. The point is, Russ figures either Guz owes somebody a favor, or she wants to make sure somebody owes her. And one way or another, some genius decided that since their suspect pool is three-quarters out-of-staters here to "reconnect" or whatever, the last thing this investigation needed was the local police interrogating everybody upfront.

It kind of makes sense, if Russ squints. But—

But, goddamn it all, there wasn't any reason it had to be _him and Milt_. Undercover as freakin' _husbands_ , which means Milt keeps—keeps _smiling_ at him, standing like six inches too close, and _touching_ him all the time.

Because of course that's what Milt thinks marriage is like. Really, if you think about it, Russ is doing twice as much to sell this married thing as he is, just by being a grumpy asshole who wants to set everything around him on fire. _That's_ the right attitude for a married dude, and especially a married dude who's been dragged into the middle of a hellscape like this one.

Plus the unfamiliar weight of the ring on his finger is driving him fucking nuts.

Sophia's pulling together some kind of—some kind of orientation folder, jesus, and these pamphlets, a schedule, every bit of it covered in a cheery looping font and way, way, way too many hearts. She natters on about the program and its mission, the history of the resort, and Milt's nodding along like he's never heard anything so interesting in his whole life; and then finally somebody else shows up with a baggage cart for all their shit, and rolls it along beside them as Sophia shows them inside and down the corridor to their rooms.

There's even some kind of bullshit spiel about that: that everybody here for the retreat has been given a room on the ground floor, and somehow that's going to keep them more connected or centered or rooted to the earth. Jesus Christ.

The room keys are tucked away in the orientation folder. They're the stupid high-tech kind where you just sort of hold them up to the door handle and wait for the light to turn green—in Russ's experience, he has to try them at least three times and then when they do work, half the time he's too slow to grab the handle before the door locks again.

Which means Milt has zero problems and opens the door smoothly, ushers Russ inside with a warm smile and then thanks the baggage dude and Sophia both profusely.

Gag-worthy. Russ grits his teeth and goes in to take a look around.

The room is just like the lobby: soothing colors, gone all summery in the sunlight streaming in through floor-to-ceiling windows—or maybe that's a sliding glass door, hard to tell from here. Clean, pleasant, welcoming.

Revolting.

When he turns back around, Milt's got their bags in his hands and he's easing the door shut behind him with one heel. Russ doesn't make a single move to help him; but maybe he should have, because as it is it only pisses him off worse that Milt doesn't—doesn't get mad, isn't annoyed. He just walks into the room and sets Russ's luggage down on the end of the neatly-made bed, right next to his own, without complaint.

"What the hell was that?" Russ demands.

Milt blinks at him, doe-eyed and innocent.

"Back there, with the receptionist. Like she was going to tell us anything useful about this Swenson guy—"

"Mr. and Mr. Baumgartner have paid a lot of money to be here, Russ," Milt points out, infuriatingly reasonable. "It would make sense for them to express their relief that circumstances have allowed them to join—"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Russ mutters.

And he's rewarded with the barest tightening of Milt's mouth. "With undercover work, I find it's worth the effort to try to really inhabit the role," he says, all mildly, but he's forcing it a little.

Russ snorts. "Yeah, well, how's this for inhabiting the role: there's got to be something we thought we needed to go on this goddamn retreat for, right? And it sure as shit isn't going to be because there's anything wrong with _you_."

Not that Milt's likely to buy that Russ is being a dick in service of the integrity of their cover. But, Russ thinks, it's not like it's not _true_. Who the fuck is going to look at the two of them, and decide Milt's the reason they're looking to—to reset and reconnect and rekindle? Please.

But Milt doesn't look like this essential fact is carrying any weight with him. He looks—he looks downright pissed, for a split second.

And then he turns back to his bag, and Russ can hear him breathe, long slow calming inhale, deliberate exhale, before he says, really levelly, "We should probably take a look at the schedule."

But Russ is hearing something else, too. "Somehow I don't think we're going to need to," he mutters, crossing back toward the door, and he opens it just as the footsteps he'd caught out in the hall come to a stop—the guy who wheeled their bags down here for them is standing out there with his fist raised, about to knock, bright smile already fixed firmly in place.

"Hey, Rekindlers!" he says, warm.

Russ wrestles desperately with the urge to slam the door shut again.

"You'll have plenty of time to unpack, don't worry. But for now we'd like to try to get you right into the swing of things—just follow me, and we'll head out to this afternoon's group activity!"

"No loving god would allow this to happen," Russ says.

The guy doesn't stop smiling; but the smile wavers, and his eyebrows kind of dip like they don't know what to do. "Um—"

"Thank you so much," Milt interjects, "we'd be glad to," and then he puts his motherfucking arm around Russ's motherfucking shoulders and smiles down at him, and adds, "Come on, dear."

Christ.

 

 

As if Russ hasn't already suffered enough, the afternoon group activity turns out to be nothing more or less than _supervised couples' massage_.

"I'd say I'm in hell, but then you wouldn't be here," he mutters to Milt under his breath.

Milt gives him a studiously blank look, and then pointedly directs his attention toward the staffperson standing up front, because that's the kind of goody-two-shoes he is.

"Hi!" the woman says, clapping her hands together, and Russ blinks and eyes her for a second: the exclamation point was audible enough, but there's—there's some _pep_ missing from her gestures, something a little fixed about her smile. The set of her shoulders is—well, frankly, it's more like Russ's than Milt's. Like she's bracing herself, just trying to get through this intact.

Russ can relate.

"My name is Michelle Peters, and I'm one of the co-owners of Crystal Shores. My partner Jeff and I like to lead at least one session per day ourselves, because it's so important to stay involved in the things that matter most!"

Ouch. She's doing what she can to sell it, but it's coming out like the saccharine patter it is.

She's got a whole spiel about physical closeness and touch, learning to care for each other body and mind, not letting the more abstracted emotional and intellectual demands of a relationship eclipse mundane everyday issues like sore shoulders. Russ tunes it out and takes a quick look around instead.

There's eleven other couples besides him and Milt—eleven, jesus. Russ hopes grimly that the murderer's like the third person they talk to. The sixth, max.

And him and Milt aren't the only ones who are—who look like—except these people actually _are_ , but that's not the point. There's another couple that's two guys, and he spots a pair of women way off to one side, too. Pretty good range of ages; some he'd peg as a little younger than him and Milt, some older, and a few starting to go gray, one lady with a long braid that's outright white and her husband bent a little with age, leaning on the edge of their massage table.

Because everybody's standing in front of one. Including him and Milt.

Russ can't decide whether it's too soon or not soon enough, when Michelle's finally done—because on the one hand it means they don't have to listen to her painfully rote recitation anymore, but on the other hand that means it's time to actually do the thing.

"I'd be happy to start us off," Milt says mildly.

God. How is this even a thing? How is this even a thing that's happening to Russ right now?

He heroically resists the urge to brain himself on the edge of the massage table, and/or run the fuck away, and sneaks another glance around. Nobody's undressing; at least they're going to be spared that much.

But, barring a meteor strike or a really well-timed fire alarm, there's also no easy way out of this.

So, okay. Fine. Milt's going to rub his back for ten minutes. No big deal.

Russ clears his throat, very carefully doesn't meet Milt's eyes, and hoists himself up on the edge of the massage table. And—and he does at least need to take off his suit jacket. Which wouldn't usually be much of a wrench, but something about doing it right now, like this, with Milt fucking _watching_ him, is making it weird.

He takes a little too long shrugging it off, and then twitches at the touch of Milt's hands at his collar. Helping him with it, that's all, but the ghostly warmth of Milt's palms along the line of his shoulders makes his skin itch, and he has to grope a hand up and stick a couple fingers into the loop of his tie, tug it looser. This whole session's set up outside on a big stone patio, shaded, but it's—it's still sunny, glare off the edges of the polished stones, off the little stream chuckling its way through the immaculately manicured resort grounds. It's too hot out here. That's the problem.

He sucks in a breath and makes himself lie down. It's a relief to have the excuse to turn away from Milt, to hide his face in the stupid headrest thingy; but it's like his brain's in overdrive, now that he can't see where Milt is or what he's doing, just having to wait it out until Milt's hands land on him.

Which they do, and all of a sudden it becomes clear that this is a terrible situation for a completely different reason than Russ thought.

"Hng," he hears himself say into the headrest, and he'd be more pissed about it except _jesus_ , that feels amazing.

"You carry a lot of tension in your shoulders," Milt observes.

"What—th'fuck—" Russ manages to coordinate his limbs enough to push himself up on one elbow. "How are you good at _this_ —"

"Well, I took a course once," Milt says easily.

Of course he did.

Russ had a plan, or at least half of one. First group activity, and half of everybody face-down on massage tables—he'd figured maybe he'd have a shot at scoping them all out, observing something useful. Tension, anxiety, guilt. Something that might let them solve this damn case and get the hell out of here.

But instead Milt's pushing him back down on the table, working all the way over Russ's back with gentle preparatory kneading strokes; and then he does something with his fingers over _here_ , digs in carefully with what feels like the point of one elbow over _there_ , and it feels like half of Russ's back just—unravels. God.

By the time he becomes dimly aware that a whole bunch of time has passed, it's way too late to do anything about it. His spine feels like a cooked noodle, his whole back warm and loose and feeling sort of—sort of _wide_ , as if he somehow unwound and spread out like cookie dough.

"All right!" he hears from about ten miles away, in Michelle's stiff forced tones. "Time to switch, everybody."

"Mmrgh," Russ says, and manages to sort of halfheartedly lever himself up. Milt's steadying him, guiding him up, hands on his shoulders, and Russ can't even quite figure out how to be pissed about it.

And then Milt says, "Ready, dear?" and half his hard work's undone in an instant, knots tying themselves back into place up the whole line of Russ's spine.

Russ looks up, ready to snarl that Milt can dial it down with the goddamn pet names, and then he realizes why Milt did it: because Michelle's three steps away and closing, definitely within earshot, coming straight toward them.

But knowing Milt had a reason doesn't really do much to soothe the hot anger trying to claw its way out of his chest.

"Welcome, newcomers," Michelle says, aiming for the warm earnest tone Sophia the receptionist had nailed so effortlessly and mostly managing to sound tired. "I'm so glad you were able to join us for this activity! I just wanted to let you know—normally you'd have learned this at your introductory session, but it's a Reset, Reconnect, and Rekindle tradition to express our sincere gratitude toward our partners on every level, when we have the opportunity. Which in this case means verbally and physically!"

Russ stares at her. For one wild second, he's half-convinced he fell asleep on the damn massage table, or somehow slid sideways into a porn parody universe. Is this lady seriously expecting—?

And then he gets a grip and glances past her, and yeah, all right, no need to take it into the gutter: the rest of the retreat attendees around them aren't stripping down or anything, just kissing.

Just—

Right. Great.

"It's not required," Michelle adds belatedly, flushing a little, evidently having clocked Russ's briefly gobsmacked expression. "Not by any means! Just encouraged, if you find yourselves in the spirit of the moment. If—" Her mouth works briefly. "If the love in your hearts moves you," she manages, kind of flatly, like the love in her heart isn't quite moving her to be able to spout that shit without grimacing.

"Right," Russ says, sour.

It's easy enough to tell, just looking around the patio, how that line's gone over with this group. _Everyone_ has moved in for a thank-you kiss—because, predictably enough, all the exhortations in the world to express your "sincere" gratitude "in the spirit of the moment" aren't equal to the sheer petty social pressure of insecure people in insecure relationships. You can't get much more insecure than being willing to shell out thousands of dollars so somebody else can tell you maybe your spouse wants a goddamn shoulder rub sometimes. And who wants to be the one couple in the room who _won't_ kiss on cue?

Nobody, that's who.

Michelle's already moving away, weaving off in between the tables and offering everybody a few more bland tired smiles.

This is stupid, Russ thinks rebelliously. He doesn't give a shit what any of these people think of him—of him, of Milt, of their exceptionally fake marriage. They're all freaking _murder suspects_ , and he and Milt are _supposed_ to be on the rocks; that's the entire goddamn point—

"We don't have to," Milt says, already hitching himself up onto the massage table.

His tone is courteous, understanding; his face is placid. Russ wants abruptly and intensely to punch him in the nose.

Because it's infuriating, all of a sudden. All of this, that Milt hasn't seemed bothered by _any_ of it. He didn't so much as twitch when Guz told them what was up, he was perfect and attentive and unflappable through the whole thing—planning this undercover gig, the prep, everything. And ever since they got here, smiling at everybody, smiling at _Russ_ ; and the—the _touching_ , the goddamn pet names—

It's intolerable, is what it is, Russ thinks dimly. It's unbearable. And suddenly the only thing he wants in the entire world, the only way he's ever going to make it through this, is if he can knock Milt off-balance, even if it's just for a second.

"I don't know, _honey_ ," Russ hears himself snarl. "I think the love in my heart is moving me," and then it's—he's got Milt by the tie, and he's—kissed him.

Is kissing him. Sort of.

It's exactly the mean rush of satisfaction Russ was hoping for, to grab Milt and lay one on him like this and feel him freeze against Russ's mouth. It's everything Russ could possibly have asked for, that split-second certainty that Milt's blindsided and uncomfortable and probably wishing he were a million miles away, just like Russ is.

But once he's felt it, relished it, then that leaves him—still kissing Milt. Closemouthed, a little crooked, and unbelievably fucking weird.

He pulls awkwardly away, sucks in a breath and coughs it out, clears his throat, and looks Milt in the face but not in the eye. "Well, come on, lie the hell down already."

Milt doesn't move, for a second. And then does, stiff and kind of disjointed, silent.

He already took off his jacket while he was working on Russ's back, so Russ is faced with an intimidating expanse of crisp dress shirt. But—hell, he's never taken a _course_ or anything, but it's not like that matters. It's a backrub. He can do this.

He clears his throat again and lowers his hands. Starts off slow, just trying to kind of feel out whatever he's supposed to be doing here, and—

And Milt's actually got some pretty serious knots. Russ frowns a little, absent, and sets his thumb against one, just easing around the shape of it in slow circles, the dense hard clot of it under his hand.

Somehow he hadn't really expected that.

(But the weirdest thing about it all, in the end, is looking down at his own hands on Milt's back; at the ring sitting there on his finger, ordinary and unremarkable; and realizing dimly that somewhere in the last half-hour he's started to get used to the way it feels.)

 

 

After the whole massage thing is over, they get to break for lunch.

Which they're expected to eat as a group, of course. Milt's gone all polite and pleasant again, and Russ can feel himself contracting back into a snarling ball of loathing in response—which is fine. Part of their cover, and all. Totally workable. Not an issue.

The food's probably great. And also probably at least twice as expensive as anything Russ stuffs into himself on a normal day, considering how much Mr. and Mr. Baumgartner are supposedly shelling out for this whole experience. But he hardly tastes it going down.

There's assigned seating, because of course there is, and while each couple's naturally stuck with each other, they're officially encouraged to turn to their neighbors and make a _new_ connection today. Milt promptly does as he's told and starts an apparently enthralling coversation with Mrs. Manning-Calloway on his far side; Russ sits there grumpily poking at his plate, and finally, grudgingly, angles a glance sideways.

His neighbor to the not-Milt side is the old lady with the long white braid. Her husband looks like he's falling asleep right there at the table, which Russ can't blame him for one bit. The old lady hasn't noticed—but then she does. Russ is expecting some sniping, frustration or irritation, cold stony silence.

But the old lady snorts and rolls her eyes, shakes her head and says, "Oh, _honestly_ , I can't take you anywhere," and then steals a whole forkful of pasta off her husband's plate and digs right in.

Russ feels the corner of his mouth twitch, the worst crumpled edges of his shitty mood smoothing out a little despite themselves.

The old lady glances over at him, mouth stuffed shamelessly with stolen pasta, and then narrows her eyes and examines him while she chews, before swallowing it all down at once. "So you're this neighbor I'm supposed to open myself up to connecting to, hmm?"

"Not on my account," Russ mutters, and the old lady favors him with a surprisingly sharklike grin.

"I take it this was his idea?" she says, tilting her chin past Russ to Milt.

"Not exactly," Russ allows sourly, stabbing at his salad with a fork just for the pleasure of putting holes in something that can't fight back.

Because this _isn't_ Milt's fault, as such. He'd been way too cooperative, for sure, nodding along to Guz like there wasn't anything wrong, and he's—he makes it look so weirdly _easy_ , pretending that they touch each other's shoulders and call each other pet names, that they _like_ each other—

But it isn't his fault. Technically.

It's not like he killed Swenson, after all.

"Mm," the old lady says, not sounding particularly convinced. "Well, were you raised in a barn, or are you planning to tell me your name?"

"I might as well have been," Russ informs her, "but I'll tell you anyway. Russ."

"I'd say it's a pleasure, but you seem perfectly well aware that it's not," the old lady shoots back, looking deeply amused. "Lillian Lieberman, and the schmuck who's about to end up with his face in his salad dressing over here is my husband Theodore. Call him Ted if you want—he hates that."

Russ snorts without totally meaning to, and Lillian's smile gets, if anything, sharkier.

"Thinks it's undignified," she adds. "And then he goes and falls asleep on the lunch table. Honestly."

"That why you're here?" Russ asks, gesturing to the whole—Theodore, who is in fact starting to list dangerously far forward.

"What? Oh, no, no, nothing like that," Lillian says, making a surprisingly expressive face. "No, goodness. We do just fine for ourselves, me and Theo. The Stockholm syndrome's mutual by now—forty or fifty years, and suddenly you realize everything that used to drive you nuts got _charming_ somehow when you weren't looking." She aims a fondly frustrated look over at Theodore's slack unconscious face, and reaches out to pat the back of one of his hands, too gently to risk waking him.

Russ raises an eyebrow at her. "So what is it, then?"

"Well, we don't have sex as often as we used to," Lillian says, without batting an eyelash. "Figured the whole 'rekindle' bit might be worth a shot—see if we can't work out how to get each other in the mood a little more often. I'd rather not make Theodore get on those drugs you see on the TV if it's not really necessary—"

"Okay, whoa, no, forget I asked!" Russ says hastily, scrubbing at his forehead. God, those mental images are going to take some time to fade. Yeesh.

"Kids these days," Lillian murmurs, shaking her head with a sniff. "So _prudish_." She tilts her head. "I'm guessing that's not your problem, with a nice young man like yours."

Russ grimaces. "Not—really," he manages, trying heroically not to picture that either and tragically failing. Jesus. "It's, uh. We're. It's complicated."

"It always is," Lillian says sagely.

"Yeah, well. We were—" Russ steels himself. "We were lucky a spot opened up for this year's retreat, I guess. Even if it already started."

And Lillian's not Sophia; Lillian's a nice old lady with a shockingly frank streak who isn't on the payroll of Crystal Shores. Her face does something strikingly acrobatic, and she leans in a little and says, "Oh. Oh, yes. Of course."

Russ raises his eyebrows at her, like he doesn't already know exactly why that space opened up. "What, you got some dirt or something? We just figured somebody must have canceled. Family emergency, that kind of thing."

"Well—I suppose you'll hear it from someone sooner or later," Lillian says, in the totally reasonable, justified tones of chronic gossips everywhere. "It wasn't just a cancellation. Mr. and Mrs. Swenson, they were the ones here before you, and—" She leaned in closer still, lowered her voice and raised her eyebrows. "Mr. Swenson was _killed_."

"Killed," Russ repeats, aiming for somewhere in between surprise and disbelief, and probably at least partly succeeding.

"Yes!" Lillian nods, eyes bright. "They had a whole section of the grounds taped off, police and everything. Of course they got everything sorted out as fast as they could—I imagine the owners were very nervous we'd all take off. People do tend to underestimate each other's morbid curiosity that way."

"Was it the wife?"

Russ didn't mean to get quite so blunt about it, interrogation room habits getting the better of him; but Lillian just looks at him for a long second and then tilts her head.

"You'd think so, wouldn't you? It's so often someone you know, or at least that's what they say. And at a retreat like this—" She gestures to the sunny resort around them, which admittedly isn't looking too murdery this afternoon, except for the way at least three of the couples further down the table are glaring at each other. "It is awfully easy to imagine someone's temper getting the better of them. The police certainly seemed to think so; they wanted to talk to Margaret—Mrs. Swenson, that is—right away."

Russ looks at her, and takes a leap. "But you don't think so, do you?"

"No," Lillian admits. "I know it sounds a bit silly to say they didn't argue, but they didn't. And I'm sure you want to say, 'well, that just means they were repressing it all'—"

Russ definitely does.

"—but that's the thing: they didn't _not_ argue, either. There are all sorts of ways to be awful to each other, and frankly, this whole week so far has been a master class in most of them." Lillian shakes her head. "But the Swensons weren't any of them. Not frigid to each other, not silent, not unhappy. They were troubled, certainly—sad, mostly. But they'd been struggling with whatever it was between them for a long time; if anything, they seemed resigned to it. They could still make each other laugh, now and then. It just didn't stick." She pauses, and bites her lip. "If anything, I suppose they seemed tired."

"Tired," Russ echoes, frowning a little. Not that it isn't possible, but exhaustion isn't a particularly murderous emotion, in Russ's experience. The right _kind_ of exhaustion, maybe, somebody strung out and at the end of their rope, desperate; but murder's a hell of an emotional effort, usually, when it's spouses. Doesn't feel quite right, somehow.

"Plus," Lillian adds, "it's—well. It's a bit hard to imagine, that's all. Ludwig Swenson was at least six and a half feet tall. Not that Margaret couldn't still have shot him, especially if she'd caught him by surprise. But you'd think if they'd had a fight, he'd have had a good chance at getting the gun away from her." The line of her mouth twists a little. "Then again, I suppose I'm inclined to want to think the best of her. She seemed like a lovely woman. You wouldn't believe the way she blushed when I started telling her stories about me and Theo—"

"Oh, I think I would," Russ says, but it doesn't have the sardonic bite he meant it to. He just—that was basically their one best guess. Margaret Swenson had never owned a gun, and there was no evidence she'd brought one with her to Crystal Shores; according to Guz, she'd cooperated with the officers from the local department in every respect. But they haven't turned up one single prior connection between Swenson himself and any of the other guests or staff at the resort. Unless somebody else broke onto the grounds just to off Ludwig Swenson, their suspect pool has either just shrunk to nothing or just expanded a hell of a lot, depending on how you look at it.

"Nobody can understand how it happened," Lillian's saying. "He didn't argue with anyone—if anything, that was part of the problem between him and Margaret, that he was never willing to say what he really wanted or make a fuss about not getting it. That he just went along with whatever she said, all the time. And he had the most boring job in the world, he was some sort of accounting clerk or something. Not even for the mob! For a perfectly legitimate local business back in Minnesota." She looks bewildered that anyone could have the nerve to be so uninteresting.

"Huh," Russ says. "And I don't suppose you know which rooms they were staying in while they were here?"

Lillian raises an eyebrow at him. "And here you'd seemed like such a bright young man," she says, with a tsk of the tongue. "Why, yours, of course. Yours and your husband's. They set aside the first floor for the attendees of the retreat, and there's twelve suites exactly."

Russ blinks. All this time they've been tossing around the same phrase, that 'a space' had opened up for Mr. and Mr. Baumgartner, and somehow it hadn't ever quite occurred to him that that was literal.

"He didn't, like, die in there—"

"Oh, goodness, no," Lillian says with a laugh. "I told you, it was off on the grounds somewhere; they had the whole area blocked off for two days."

"Well," Russ says, "okay."

Time to finish lunch, and see what else they can find out about poor dead Ludwig.

 

 

There's a twenty-minute gap between each item on their schedule—built-in time for the staff to round people up, Russ guesses, to use the bathroom or powder your nose or whatever without disrupting the atmosphere of one of these precious little sessions.

Russ hustles straight back to their room, tossing a terse explanation to Milt over his shoulder, and manages to get the door open with only a little fucking around with the key. He looks around the whole space with new eyes, trying to pick out corners, nooks and crannies; anywhere something might have accidentally have been left behind by the Swensons, gaps something might have fallen into or space for a secret to be tucked away.

He's halfway through the closet, just in case Swenson maybe left a jacket or some slacks or _something_ —even a look through his pockets might give them a goddamn hint.

"Russ," Milt says behind him.

"We're missing something," Russ tells him, still looking. "We must be. None of this makes any sense. Lillian—at lunch back there, that old lady I was next to—she says Swenson didn't fight with anybody, hadn't pissed anybody off. And it doesn't sound like Mrs. Swenson had the means, and even if she did have the means, she didn't have the motive—"

"Russ," Milt says.

"—unless there's something _else_ we don't know. But Guz already gave us the rundown on Swenson's background—"

"No prior associations with other guests or resort staff," Milt agrees, "and no apparent criminal ties. Late parking tickets, a misdemeanor when he was young, but nothing anyone would want him silenced for. Russ."

"What?" Russ demands, pulling his head back out of the closet and twisting around to glare.

Milt gives him a mild steady look, orientation folder in his hands, and holds up the schedule. "You're going to make us late for this afternoon's Reflect, Respect, and Respond group therapy session."

" _What?_ "

 

 

Reflecting, respecting, and responding is, it turns out, exactly as much fun as Russ had expected it to be. Which is to say that they were expected to sit in a circle on the floor in a soul-destroyingly pastel room, on absurdly large cushions that were way too soft, and listen to each other's stultifyingly dull personal problems.

Milt, of course, has no trouble summoning an appropriately attentive look to his face, nodding along like every resentfully muttered word has deep emotional meaning to him. Russ mostly wants to scream.

It's just all so _stupid_. Other people's interpersonal struggles are never interesting, and that goes double when they're _this_ personal—years and years of petty pent-up bullshit, carefully hoarded by the kinds of people who feel like they need the excuse of a supervised session before they can be honest with each other for a couple hours.

It's ludicrous, is what it is. People shouldn't be _allowed_ to get married without deciding whose job it is to clean the toilet once a week. Jesus.

Honestly, it all kind of blurs together, after the first fifteen minutes or so. Russ gets some amusement out of watching Lillian murmur in Theodore's ear, on the other side of the circle, and trying to guess what kind of commentary she's got to offer that's making Theodore give her such long-suffering glances.

But it's warm in here, and the stupid huge cushion really is soft, and after working in a police department for as many years as he has, Russ has gotten pretty inured to outbursts of tears and shrill accusations getting hurled around. This is just like Saturday afternoon at the BCPD except that none of these people are armed. Takes all the thrill out of it.

So he's busy trying not to fall asleep, and also not thinking about how close Milt is to him—how lucky he is, how grimly grateful, that Milt cut him a break and hasn't put an arm around him or anything horrifying like that.

And then, suddenly, the session leader's clapping his hands and saying, "All right, Cheryl and Bartholomew, thank you both so much for sharing! I think everyone got a lot out of that, and we all appreciate your willingness to open yourselves up in ways you haven't felt able to in the past. That takes a lot of commitment!"

God. Michelle from the massage session was a breath of fresh air compared to this guy; he really sounds like he _means_ all that garbage, so earnest Russ could puke.

"Now—Mr. and Mr. Baumgartner, is it? You must be our newest couple!" The guy beams. "I'm so glad you were able to join us for the second week of this retreat. Oh, man, and I forgot to introduce myself at the start, sorry about that: I'm Jeff, Jeff Yeung." Russ narrows his eyes, a vague bell ringing somewhere, just as Jeff beams harder still and adds, "I'm co-owner of Crystal Shores, and you'll have met my partner Michelle at the massage session before lunch."

Well, that explains it.

"Hi, I'm Milt," Milt says, with a smile.

And, right, everybody's been using first names, in the pursuit of a greater atmosphere of closeness or some crap like that. "Russ," Russ allows, grudging.

"Fantastic!" Jeff says, with another clap of his hands, straightening up on his cushion at the head of the circle. He's absurdly tall, big broad shoulders; the overall effect is kind of like the Hulk is smiling at you, sitting there patiently and inviting you to share your innermost thoughts with the group.

And then he raises his eyebrows, because—right. It's Russ and Milt's turn now.

Great.

Russ swallows. Sitting here waiting for this shit to be over, he'd been idly figuring he'd make something up; it wasn't like it mattered at all, and he and Milt were never going to see anything again. Maybe take a page from Lillian's book, tell everybody Milt couldn't _satisfy_ him anymore, just to see what look it would put on Milt's face.

But when he opens his mouth, what comes out is, "Well, there's—there's this thing he does with his coffee cups when he thinks I'm not paying attention. With his teeth, he's, he just kind of crimps them all around the edge, a little bit at a time. I hate that. I hate the noise it makes, I hate the way it looks, I hate that he can't just drink the damn coffee and then throw the cup away like a normal person. I really hate that."

Which is, accidentally, 100% the truth.

Jeff looks briefly startled, but rallies like a trooper. "Sometimes it's the little everyday things we don't feel we can complain about that are the hardest to get past," he says understandingly, with a little nod; and just like that, every uncertain face around the entire circle turns thoughtful, sympathetic.

"Yeah," somebody else says—Russ thinks maybe his name is Tom, or Tim, one of those really ordinary T names. "Yeah, exactly."

"Thank you," Jeff adds, "for opening up and sharing that with us today," and then his Bambi-eyed, earnest attention swings to Milt like a spotlight. "Milt, how do you feel about what Russ just said?"

Russ grits his teeth, and risks a glance. Milt's looking at him, not at Jeff, and the barest tiny little puzzled line is wrinkling into place just over the bridge of his nose, brows drawn together ever so slightly.

"Well," Milt says slowly, "I—" He stops, and then aims a rueful smile at Jeff, and the room more generally. "I appreciate that he's got grounds for complaint, because that's definitely something I do."

He gets a bunch of return smiles and a warm wordless murmur of amusement, which is pretty revolting.

"And Russ is right, I didn't think he was paying attention," Milt adds. "I didn't know he'd even noticed. So I suppose I have mixed feelings."

"Mixed?" Jeff repeats, leading, clearly inviting Milt to elaborate.

"I'm glad he chose to mention it today," Milt says. "But I wish he'd felt able to speak to me about it between the two of us, and it bothers me to think he didn't."

And that gets a chorus of soft wistful sighs, even from Tom or Tim or whatever, and also an honest-to-god coo of sympathy. Russ chooses to believe that was Lillian, done in a spirit of mockery, because otherwise he'd have to throw himself out the window.

"Sometimes we all fall into ruts," Jeff observes gently, and so non-judgmentally that Russ wants to kick him in the teeth. "If you don't say anything the first time, or the second time, or the third time—you'll start asking yourself why you'd bother the fourth time. You tell yourself it's not a big deal, that by now there's no point in making a fuss. It can be easy to fall into communication patterns we don't know how to break."

Russ closes his eyes. Fuck Jeff anyhow.

"And Milt?" Jeff continues, without any consideration for the intensity of Russ's disdain for every single word coming out of his mouth. "Do you have any issues with Russ you'd like to use this time to discuss? It can be anything, large or small—an argument you have over and over, or something that happened just once that you were never able to get off your chest."

Russ probably can't pretend to be unconscious for this. He makes himself look up at Milt again—and Milt glances at him and then away, and clears his throat. "Well, there's—there's the bathroom sink," Milt says, and Russ hears it like it's coming to him through a tunnel, like Milt's half a mile away. "He never rinses his toothpaste off the sides of it; it's like he doesn't even see it. I always have to wash it off myself."

Russ stares at him, some ugly knotted-up thing in his chest writhing to life, sprouting thorns. Son of a bitch. Milt made something up— _made something up_ , and never mind that that had been Russ's plan too, at first; because now Russ has given up something real and Milt hasn't. Like they don't both know he's got more than enough _actual_ complaints he could make about Russ, like he couldn't take up this entire fucking session all by himself just talking about everything wrong with Russ.

Like he's pretending there isn't anything he'd bring up if he had the chance for real. And something about that pisses Russ off so bad he half expects some steam to start coming out of his ears.

"—fine, of course, but let's see if we can't dig just a little bit deeper," Jeff is saying warmly. "Russ, is there anything you'd like to say to Milt now? Let's all remember to _reflect_ and _respect_ as we respond—"

"Yeah," Russ spits. "Yeah, I think I can come up with something," and he jabs Milt in the shoulder and provokes a little wave of startled gasps around the circle. "Why do you always have to fucking _hide_ everything? If you've got something to say, why don't you just say it? Why do you always—"

He dimly perceives Jeff in the corner of his eye, alarmed; physical contact and profanity are probably both on the big no-no list in their "group safe space" or whatever the fuck. But he couldn't care less about Jeff right this particular second—because Milt's eyes have narrowed, in that way that means Russ actually scored a point. Milt's going to get snippy, going to actually lose his goddamned temper, even if it's only for ten seconds.

"Well, I don't know, Russ," Milt says, cool and deceptively even, a biting edge lurking just underneath. "I suppose it might have something to do with the fact that sharing things with you never seems to make any difference."

Russ flinches— _flinches_ , feels himself do it and can't stop it, and if Milt had more to say he swallows it at that. It feels like the whole room goes silent along with Milt, but maybe that's just down to the roaring in Russ's ears drowning everything else out, the pound of his heart suddenly weirdly loud.

"Yeah," Russ croaks, and screws his eyes shut, digs his fingernails into the palms of his hands; and the ring feels suddenly fat and obvious against his knuckle, pressing hard, painful. "Last time, I—I fucked that up. I fucked it up and I know I did, and I'm—I don't know how to fix it. I can't figure out how to fix it. I—" and there's more he ought to say but it's not going to come out, his throat closing up on him tight and he doesn't know why.

 

 

(Except he does.

It's about the cornfield, because of course it is. That whole day, all of it, but the way Russ thinks of it in his head is always like that: the cornfield.

Everything Milt told him while they were shut in that car trunk, all the secrets Russ had ever wanted to pry out of him just spilling over at once. And then Brock had been right there in front of them with a gun, and it had been—

God, it had been so _easy_. Russ knows that's a weird thing to think about being threatened by a guy who wanted to kill Milt in front of him, but it's true. It had been so fucking easy. He'd known exactly what to do, in that moment, and he'd done it.

And then he'd lived through it and so had Milt. And once Milt was out of the hospital and done with his PT and everything, all healed up and back on the job, well, it wasn't like Russ had been planning to partner with anybody else. After all the shit he'd been through for this douchebag, breaking down that shiny exterior one scuff at a time until Milt had finally let on he was a real boy? No way.

But—

The thing is, there had been a moment. He'd felt it, that very first day Milt came back to work and found him at his desk. Sitting there in his chair and looking up at Milt—right then. That had been it, right there. The Moment.

And if he'd said the right thing, in that instant, somehow it all would've worked out. He could've made Milt understand exactly how much all of that had meant to him, how important it was. That he got what it was Milt had given him, telling him the truth about all that ugly shit in Milt's past, and that _he'd_ meant it, too. That Milt was his partner, that he'd never have left him there; or at least that Brock would've had to shoot him in the head to make him.

Except the right thing didn't come. He didn't know what it was. He'd sat there and he'd stalled out, gears grinding. When he'd opened his mouth, what had come out of it had been some totally ordinary shitty thing, the exact same thing he'd have said to Milt any other day.

And Milt had stood there on the other side of Russ's desk and smiled his fake smile, and he'd been _gracious_ about it. He'd been gracious about it, the way _he_ would have been any other day.

That was when Russ knew they were fucked. If he hadn't done it, if he'd said the right thing instead—or if Milt had called him on being a dumbass, if Milt had felt like he had the right to do that—

But he hadn't. Russ hadn't, and Milt hadn't, and they'd slid straight back into that rut, like nothing had changed at all.

Russ had driven home that night cursing himself the whole way, feeling like he needed to hit something except the only thing he wanted to hit was himself.

And the worst part of it all is that he still doesn't know. He still doesn't know what he should have done instead, what that elusive right thing would have been; and there's no way in hell he's ever going to be able to fix it.)

 

 

Russ swallows, and forces himself to open his eyes again.

Milt is staring at him, wide-eyed, looking surprised and—kind of intent, in a way that makes Russ want to swallow a couple more times. "Russ," he says, sort of quietly.

But whatever he was going to say, it's interrupted by yet another brisk clap of Jeff's goddamn hands.

"Unfortunately we only have two hours for today's session, which means ten minutes per couple—if everyone's going to have time to speak, we're going to have to move on," Jeff says apologetically.

And the hell of it is, he looks like he actually means it. He's gazing at the two of them with a totally unwarranted softness in his eyes, and he's—he's done with the clap and he's put a hand to his chest, clutching at his heart, his face going all dewy-eyed and wistful.

"But I feel like you guys have made some really intense progress today, and I'm so proud of you both for speaking up, and for managing to share some words that clearly meant a lot to you." He actually fucking sniffs a little, like he's just that overcome. "Please thank each other for your honesty, and for beginning the journey to work through this together."

Which is the same fucking thing he's been making everybody else say, but somehow that doesn't stop it from feeling uncomfortably on-the-nose.

And—thank-yous. Right. Cheryl and—and Bart or whatever, they'd expressed their gratitude on multiple levels; Russ remembers that much.

Not required, just recommended, he thinks half-hysterically, but he can hardly fuck this up any worse than he has already. And if they were actually married—

If they were actually married, he can imagine that after saying shit like that, it would be kind of reassuring.

As it is, though, reassuring is about the last thing it feels like, to reach out and grip the nape of Milt's neck. "Um—what he said," Russ offers up unsteadily. "Thanks. And stuff."

And then he closes his eyes and just makes himself do it. Milt's mouth is warm, and a little softer this time; but then Milt had some warning, didn't get caught by surprise. Russ doesn't lose his head, doesn't do anything weird—if they were actually married, they'd kiss like this all the time, firm but phatic, nothing they'd need to make a production out of.

It's not bad. Kind of nice, maybe.

He pulls away, and discovers that somewhere in there Milt gripped him by the wrist, thumb smoothing along the inside of Russ's forearm.

"Thank you," Milt says to him quietly.

And Russ might almost have kidded himself into thinking it meant something, right then; except Milt's gaze slides off him and on to the next couple around the circle, and he catches Russ's hand neatly in his own so Russ can't accidentally just leave it there clutching at the nape of his neck.

Because they were just trying to get through this stupid session without looking too not-married to anybody, and apparently they did, and that's all.

Yeah.

 

 

They're set free after that for some kind of "couples' communion" or something, which they're supposed to spend finding a nice spot on the resort grounds and sitting together without speaking, just enjoying each other's presence or whatever.

Russ takes that as an excuse to head in a beeline for the scene of the crime. The local PD is done with it, it's been cleaned up and it's not taped off anymore; but even if Russ hadn't recognized it from the photos in the file Guz gave them, he'd have guessed just from the way the grass is beaten down. Crystal Shores is nowhere near a lake and seems to possess precisely zero shores, but whoever they've got doing building & grounds takes spectacular care of the grass, which is lush and green and soft everywhere _except_ where two dozen crime scene guys were doing their thing not three days ago.

Milt picks a spot and does in fact sit down, which is fair enough. If some of the resort staff come over here, they're going to need to be able to at least pretend they were doing what they were supposed to.

Russ leaves him to it and takes a nice long look around. This yields, as he is rapidly coming to expect from this motherfucking case, sweet jack-all.

There's nothing particularly interesting about this spot. It's nowhere you'd need special credentials or anything to access, as Russ and Milt have neatly proven by walking right over to it, which means the location in and of itself isn't going to do much to narrow their suspect pool. Russ dimly recalls something in the file that had come from the PD's initial questions for Margaret Swenson—that Ludwig had liked to step out in the evenings and take a walk around the resort grounds, sometimes. Frustratingly, it hadn't been every night; it wasn't the kind of thing somebody who'd wanted to kill Ludwig could necessarily have counted on.

Russ walks around the scene in a circle, recalls the direction ballistics had indicated the shot was fired from. Closer to the resort, and Russ squints out from the approximate spot and tries to imagine what it would look like at night: there's some nicely trimmed trees over here, along one of the stone walking paths set across the grounds, and if it were clear, you _would_ probably get a pretty good silhouette of Ludwig's moving figure.

Not that that helps much.

Before Russ even really realizes he's starting to get hungry again, it's somehow time for dinner. He doesn't get lucky and end up next to Lillian again; it's Cheryl this time, of Cheryl-and-Bart, and all she seems to want to do is tell him how deeply moved she was by his and Milt's show of profound emotion during group therapy. Russ ponders the logistics of forcing himself to choke on a baby carrot, just so somebody would have to haul him away from the table to do the Heimlich—maybe he could slip back into the wrong seat.

Except that "somebody" would probably be Milt, which feels like it would be weirdly dangerous in a way Russ has absolutely no interest in articulating to himself.

All told, it's a relief to realize they're out of scheduled activities for the day, and can slip back into their room. They have a totally professional and reasonable discussion of the big pile of nothing they've found out about Swenson—because Milt didn't have much more luck than Russ at lunch learning why anybody might have wanted the guy dead, and at dinner he was next to Theodore, who wasn't any more help than Cheryl.

"So, fantastic," Russ says, throwing up his hands. "That's just—that's just great. A whole day wasted, and we don't know anything we didn't know this morning—"

"You seem convinced it wasn't Margaret Swenson," Milt points out.

"Yeah, but that doesn't _help_ ," Russ says. "If it had obviously been her, we'd be out of here already!"

Milt accepts this with a silent, pointed grace that makes Russ even angrier. Russ decides this furious energy is best used going through their whole room properly, since he had to give it a rest earlier for them to make it to therapy on time—and if that right there doesn't encapsulate this whole case perfectly, Russ doesn't know what does.

But he checks everywhere he can think of, and doesn't turn up anything that looks like it belongs to Mr. or Mrs. Swenson. Even the resort-stamped notepads on the bedside tables don't have any indents to trace or rub over.

Finally he has to concede defeat. He snaps at Milt that he's going to bed, and then shuts himself in the bathroom for way too long, rooting through the bag he'd thrown together when he packed until he finds his toothbrush. He ends up staring down into the sink self-consciously, looking for any stray toothpaste suds on the sides of the bowl; and then he has to stare at himself in the mirror and curse a blue streak until he feels less unbelievably stupid.

That part takes a while.

By the time he comes back out, Milt's changed into absurdly nice-looking pajamas—who even has pajamas that make them look _nice_ instead of vaguely silly? Jesus.

Milt's changed, and he—he's folded up a blanket neatly on the sofa, across the room from the lone king bed.

He doesn't say anything about it, just looks up and nods at Russ and goes into the bathroom himself to wash up. Russ stares at the sofa for a minute, and then he turns around and switches off the lights, throws himself at the bed and makes sure his back is to the bathroom door.

He can't argue with it. Why would he even want to? It's not like it's a problem. Russ doubts anybody here is paranoid enough to actually check; and if they did, Russ and Milt could hardly imitate the average married couple _better_ than by deliberately sleeping on completely separate pieces of furniture.

It's fine, Russ tells himself.

He lies there and feels whatever was left of Milt's hard work on his back slowly erasing itself; and he closes his eyes in the dark, tired and frustrated, and wishes silently that Guz had picked just about anybody else in the entire PD for this job.

 

 

In the morning, he's got his head on straight. He feels pretty okay; the mattress on that king is in good shape, and he slept fine. He doesn't spare a glance for Milt on the sofa, and he brushes his teeth and spits toothpaste everywhere and doesn't give a damn.

In a nice change of pace that feels like a sign that he's on the right track, it turns out that breakfast is considered special time for couples to reacquaint themselves with each other in preparation for the new day, and a whole bunch of other codswallop—but that means the food comes right to their rooms, delivered by a smiling dude with a heaping food service cart, and they don't have to form any new connections with anybody.

Or worry about getting overheard while they talk about the case.

"So, look, we aren't getting anywhere trying to follow up on Swenson personally. Right?"

"It's been difficult to decide who here might have had a motive to kill him," Milt concedes. "No one seems aware of any grudges held against him or animosity harbored toward him by any of the other guests, or anyone on the staff. Even if the killer were lying to us about it—or the killer and their spouse were in on it together—it's hard to imagine no one else would have noticed. Especially given the ... scope of the retreat's group activities."

"Exactly," Russ says, pointing a finger at him. "Twenty-four people stuffed in a room together, telling each other their feelings all the time—I mean, probably at least half of them want to kill each other, by now, but none of them seem to have had much of a problem with Swenson. And if anybody else had, surely somebody would be able to tell us about it." He shakes his head. "But he got killed anyhow. So we're looking at this the wrong way. We have to be."

Milt's started frowning a little. "But, Russ—"

"You remember the thing with the mayor," Russ interrupts, impatient.

"We thought he wasn't the target," Milt agrees. "But he _was_."

"Yeah, fine, but maybe _this_ time he wasn't," Russ says. "Or, you know, Swenson wasn't. If everything we're coming up with is telling us nobody wanted him dead, then maybe that's true. Maybe we don't need to find somebody who had a reason to kill Swenson; maybe we need to find somebody who had a reason to kill _anybody_ , and somehow Swenson got in the way."

And he sees the expression on Milt's face starting to clear. "It's possible a disagreement began somewhere else," Milt says slowly, "and progressed across the grounds. If Swenson was out walking—"

"Wrong place, wrong time," Russ concludes for him, triumphant. "We just need to widen the scope. Maybe we'll still turn up somebody who wanted Swenson out of the picture, but it's—so far we haven't been asking the right questions. We need to come at this from a different direction."

"All right," Milt says, and like it was just waiting on the cue, the moment he's done saying it there's one of those knocks on the door Russ has started to dread.

God. He hasn't even looked at the schedule. What fresh hell awaits them today?

Milt answers the door, because he's the worst person ever in the history of the planet. And on the other side is Sophia—in a horrifically soft spring green today—with a smile already neatly screwed into place, even before she meets Milt's eyes and says, "Good morning, Rekindlers! Just letting you know it's almost time for today's Rejuvenation, Relaxation, and Restoration session. If you didn't bring swimwear, just let me know and we'll grab you some Crystal Shores trunks in your size!"

"Swimwear," Russ repeats grimly.

 

 

He did bring swimwear. Somewhere amidst the nightmarish blur of the prep for all this, he remembers Guz handing him a sheet provided by Crystal Shores, the list of suggested items for your stay, blah blah blah. Since Russell Baumgartner presumably had been interested in this fucking retreat, or at least had known what he was getting into, he'd probably have at least tried to pack right for it; Russ had grudgingly done the same.

But he hadn't been paying _attention_ or anything.

Which is why the list's inclusion of swimwear resulted in him halfheartedly stuffing the oldest, ugliest pair of trunks he owned—an eye-searing pair that's too big and falls almost to the knee on him, patterned with swirling planets and a dog astronaut, as it turns out—into his bag.

Milt, of course, packed a pair of dark blue swim shorts that fits him perfectly, "short" being an extremely accurate descriptor.

So that's great.

About half the couples are already in the resort's outdoor pool when they get down there; the other half are still busy spreading sunscreen on each other, and fuck, sunscreen.

Russ hates everything.

Milt looks at him, expression unreadable, and hands him a container of brand-new SPF 100 that he probably fucking bought fresh just for this.

It's—over faster than the massage thing, at least. But that's about all that can be said for it. Whatever trepidation Russ might have felt faced with Milt's back when it was appropriately covered in a no-doubt-extremely-expensive dress shirt, it's approximately quadrupled when it's all—skin.

And it's only about half past ten, but it really is warm today, sun just starting to beat down properly. Milt's back is warm under Russ's hands, the sunscreen cool and slippery; Russ deliberately doesn't bother trying to heat it up before he applies it, but all that means is Milt sucks in a little breath every time Russ touches him, muscles jumping under Russ's fingertips. And the sun glinting off Russ's stupid ring is fucking blinding.

In short, it sucks balls.

When he's done, Milt doesn't even make him ask—just turns around right away, pushes at Russ's shoulder gently to swivel him around and then grabs the sunscreen and gets started. He's careful, thorough, long swipes all across Russ's shoulders and back, sweeping up to make sure he's covered the nape of Russ's neck, too.

Russ could've done that part himself. But he doesn't say anything about it.

Michelle's back for this session—maybe she prefers the morning ones, Russ thinks idly. There's another little speech involved, naturally, because god forbid they rejuvenate, relax, and restore without somebody explaining how fucking around in a pool for an hour and a half is going to enhance their marriage from this day forward.

The gist of it seems to be that being able to relax together and find peace and active enjoyment in each other's company is just as important as all the hard emotional work they do together as couples. And Michelle's working it a little better today, though she hasn't quite achieved Jeff's unforced and heartfelt level of encouraging pep.

Co-owners of the place, they'd both said, and partners. Kind of hard to imagine, Russ thinks, which is to say that it's easy enough to imagine Jeff running a place like this, and holding these kinds of retreats, but a lot harder to picture how Michelle had wound up here. Certain irony in the idea that somebody who owns a resort needs to take a vacation, but Russ can't shake the impression that Michelle could use a break. Jeff had genuinely seemed to feel—enriched and shit, by that group therapy shindig. Michelle just strikes him as tired.

He looks up and discovers it's safe to: Milt's already gone ahead and lowered himself into the pool, thank god, which means everything Russ needs to not look at is conveniently funhouse-wiggly through the water.

They're closest to the end with Cheryl and Bart, Tom or Tim and his wife—Delilah, possibly, or maybe Dolores—and the two married women, Mrs. and Mrs. Smith, who are so pleasant and easygoing that Russ has decided already that they're probably spies or assassins or something.

Luckily for him, though, Lillian and Theodore aren't too much further down. Russ scopes out his options and slides into the water between Cheryl and Lillian, and thankfully Cheryl doesn't get a chance to get started on his and Milt's profound and inspiring love before Lillian's giving him that sharky old lady smile and winking. "What's cooking, good-looking?" she murmurs, with a prim little gesture toward the awful swim trunks.

Russ rolls his eyes. "They were a gift," he lies sourly.

"Mmhmm," Lillian says, probably not fooled.

Delilah or Dolores sighs and leans back against Tom or Tim's shoulder; apparently if he'd had a bone to pick with her about ordinary everyday things that drove him nuts, they'd sorted it out and then some, last night. "I can't believe it's been a week already," she's saying, to the redheaded Mrs. Smith. "It's been such a wonderful experience for us—"

"Except for the murder, I'm sure," the redheaded Mrs. Smith murmurs, dry.

"Oh, well, yes, of course," Delilah or Dolores rushes to agree. "Of course I didn't mean—goodness, you don't think that might stop them from holding it again next year, do you? I mean, the police wouldn't shut them down or anything, would they?"

"They might not have to," Lillian says casually, and is rewarded with Delilah or Dolores's undivided attention, plus half a dozen other raised eyebrows and curious looks. "Didn't any of you Google the place before you came? There were at least two or three listings for the property. Someone must be thinking about selling."

"You think so?" Delilah or Dolores says, hushed, wide-eyed.

Lillian shrugs eloquently, absently nudging her wet braid back over her shoulder. "The grounds are quite large," she says. "I wouldn't be surprised if it added up to a pretty good value. Especially in this area, these days."

This prompts a rush of chatter, half a dozen overlapping voices speculating on how much is "pretty good", what a waste it would be if all this lovely resort property were turned into rows of condos or whatever.

But Russ doesn't listen to any of it.

Everything he's hated about all of this, everything that's been utterly intolerable about it, right down to Milt's perfect tiny swim shorts, has been wiped away all at once by the sudden certainty that this is it. This is the thing they needed to know; this is important somehow.

He looks over and his eyes meet Milt's, the hunch prickling up the back of Russ's neck so powerfully that he shivers—and somehow Milt gets it. Milt sees it, and Russ sees him see it, and for that single perfect second, understanding and understood, they really are on the exact same page, like even after everything, they're still partners where it counts.

 

 

They're supposed to stay in the pool the whole time, and then head off to lunch once everybody's had a chance to change back into actual clothes.

But Russ and Milt beg off a little early, citing a need for medication for Russ's convenient sudden-onset migraine ("Oh, is _that_ why you scowl all the time?" Lillian asks brightly, because she's awful). And once they're back in the main building, they just need to get back down the hall toward the reception area, and then into the main office.

The only thing standing between them and cracking this fucking case is Sophia.

"Russ," Milt hisses, from where he's leaning against the wall to keep out of Sophia's line of sight. "Russ, are you sure—"

"Of course I'm not sure," Russ snaps, in a stage whisper. "If I were sure, it wouldn't be a hunch, would it?"

The angle of Milt's mouth gets a little judgy.

But it's true, dammit. Russ can't pinpoint exactly why, but something about all of this—Jeff and Michelle, the way they each seem to feel about this stupid retreat, the rumors of a sale—has almost fit itself together in his head. He still hasn't quite worked out what it has to do with Swenson; even if Milt's theory is good and Swenson ended up in the middle of an altercation, if that altercation was between Jeff and Michelle and it involved a gun, then they're both way better actors than Russ has given them credit for.

He just needs to figure out what's missing, what's going to make it all slot into place. And if they can find any evidence in the main office that Michelle wants to sell, that Jeff's been blocking it, that they've fought about it or _anything_ , they'll be one step closer.

He glances over. Milt's watching him thoughtfully, and Russ couldn't name the look on his face if somebody paid him to, but somehow it squeezes all the air out of his chest just seeing it there.

And then Milt straightens up and steps out into the lobby.

For a panicked second, Russ almost grabs after him—but it's already too late, Sophia must be looking over, so he yanks his hand back and prays he was quick enough. He sneaks a glance around the corner, and Milt's leaning in over the desk, all—all bare-chested and swim-shorts-y, smiling. Russ reassesses the risk of Sophia looking over here at basically zero.

He can't hear what Milt's saying to her, which drives him bonkers; he just has to crouch there in his stupid trunks, sweating, hoping Milt's not about to ruin this entire operation.

But then Sophia gasps a little and says, "Oh, _dear_ —yes, of course, let me just run down to the resort infirmary and see if I can't find something that will help. Back in a jiffy!"

Jesus Christ.

But she goes—out the side door in the other direction, thankfully, and not toward where Russ is hiding in the corridor. And then Milt says, "Russ—come on, quick," and Russ swears and hustles over to join him behind the desk.

He's already plucked a set of keys off the little rack by Sophia's workstation, neatly labeled with "MAIN OFFICE".

"What the hell did you tell her?" Russ demands.

"Your headache," Milt says. "If by some chance we actually get away with this, it'll help if all our lies match up. You thought you had packed more medication, but you hadn't."

"Right. Okay," Russ says, and then they head back behind the desk and break into the main office.

 

 

Or—they sneak in, anyway. It's not real B&E when they've got the key, Russ figures.

He's not even sure what to look for, just opening up file cabinets and rifling through papers. He'd love to take a look at Michelle's computer, see whether there isn't some kind of trace that she put up those sale listings, before Jeff made his objections known; but there's no way he's going to be able to guess her password or crack it or whatever the fuck else.

Good old-fashioned paper trail. That's what he's thinking, as he opens up another file cabinet. Something that'll have their ownership shares, or—or any research Michelle's already done, trying to get the property value assessed and figure out how much her piece of this place is worth. Surely there's going to be _something_.

And then he hears the sound of the door opening, and he's halfway through turning, wondering with idle irritation what the hell Milt thinks he's doing, before he registers the shape of Milt in his field of view: over behind the other desk, nowhere near the door.

Neither of them had kept an eye on it. Amateur mistake, Russ thinks distantly, and then he finishes that turn, and finds himself face-to-face with Michelle.

Michelle, and the gun she's pointing at him.

Russ lifts his hands, palm-out, real slow; Milt's doing the same, in the corner of his eye. They'd brought their service weapons along, just in case. But they hadn't worn them out to the fucking pool.

Fuck.

"Don't suppose you'll believe that we snuck in here to make out," Russ offers flatly.

Michelle seems unmoved. "Who are you guys?" she says—shaky, but there's a thread of real anger in it. Somebody who's reflected maybe a little too much, Russ thinks inanely, and isn't feeling like she's gotten either respect or a response. "Huh? Who are you? This is about Mr. Swenson, isn't it? What do you want?"

"You killed him," Milt observes, in a quiet even tone that manages to sound value-neutral, non-judgmental.

Michelle's face crumples, sudden, and then she sucks in a sharp breath and smooths it out just as quickly; but her eyes are wet. "It was a mistake. It was—that wasn't supposed to happen. It was dark. It was dark, I didn't know it was him—"

And there it is, that perfect satisfying _click_ as the pieces put themselves together. Jesus, Russ should have figured it out the second he saw Jeff sitting there in the therapy room.

 _Ludwig Swenson was at least six and a half feet tall_ , that's what Lillian had told him at lunch. And Jeff Yeung, seated but big, long legs folded carefully up on his huge soft cushion, broad-shouldered enough to make Russ think idle thoughts about the Hulk—how tall was he?

Had to be a close thing. At night, in the dark, a silhouette; Michelle had shot at the absurdly tall figure of a man, and she'd hit him.

But it had been the wrong absurdly tall man.

"You have to understand," Michelle's saying, a little more steadily. "I can't keep doing this. I _can't_. The first few years, it wasn't so bad. I thought I could put up with it. The money was all right, and I could—I could pretend to care about it for enough money. I should have been able to pretend to care about it, for enough money."

"You want to sell," Milt says, still in that quiet and almost understanding tone. "But Jeff won't agree, will he? There's some kind of clause, the sort of thing Jeff really believes in, to show that you were in this as real partners: that you had to make all your decisions about the property together."

" _Yes_ ," Michelle says. "God, he's _unbearable_. You don't understand, you only had to spend two hours with him—"

"Oh, I understand," Russ mutters.

"—he just never stops! I thought it was cute once," she adds tiredly. "Stupid, but cute. It was fine. You need somebody like that, somebody earnest, to get people to buy into a place like this. The resort, the retreats, all of it."

"But it was dark," Milt says, "and you couldn't tell who it was. You thought it was Jeff out there taking a walk."

Michelle squeezes her eyes shut. "I know it was wrong," she says. "I don't know why I thought it would help, I just—I just didn't know what else to do. I didn't know how else to get _out_ of here."

Tired, Russ thinks, but this time it's the right kind: end of her rope.

"Just your luck you killed a guy nobody wanted dead," Russ says.

Michelle laughs a little, but not like she actually thinks it's funny. "Yeah," she says. "All those cops looking for somebody who had it out for him, and they couldn't dig up even one person." She breathes in, and then out; and the gun had dipped a little, but she notices, steadies it. "And you're cops, too. Aren't you?"

"Me," Russ says. "Not him."

She glances past him at Milt. "What's he?"

Russ shrugs a shoulder. "Underwear model," he offers, deadpan.

Michelle raises an eyebrow, but the gun stays pointed at Russ, just the way he'd hoped it would.

Milt got shot in front of him once, and he couldn't do anything about then. But he can this time, dammit.

"Really? You expect me to believe he's not your partner," she says.

"Didn't say that," Russ says—just hedging, trying to drag it out; because they've still got the goddamn rings on, and there's all kinds of things _partner_ could mean. And the longer they can keep her talking, the better the odds that—

"Michelle?"

"Oh, god," Michelle says wearily. "You have got to be fucking kidding me," and there's footsteps now, a figure outside the door. A really, really tall one; and then Jeff Yeung slings the main office door open.

"Michelle, I don't understand," he's saying, "you left our Rejuvenation, Relaxation, and Restoration Rekindlers in the pool unsupervised," and then he stops short, staring. "What—"

" _God_ ," Michelle cries. "Will you just _fuck off_?"

" _Michelle_ ," Jeff gasps, and Russ honestly can't guess whether it's the gun or the profanity that's at issue.

"Apparently you and your co-owner here disagree about the future of Crystal Shores on a more serious level than you realized," Russ tells him, and Jeff's eyes widen further still.

"What? But you said—you said it was all right. You said you understood!"

"You wouldn't _stop_ ," Michelle shouts at him, and she has to turn a little to do it, not looking at Russ anymore, focus all swung over to Jeff. "You wanted to _talk_ about it. I just wanted out!"

Jeff looks absolutely baffled. "But I don't understand," he says, plaintive. "Honesty is _crucial_ , Michelle, you have to be willing to open yourself up to—"

Michelle cuts him off with an inarticulate noise and moves, and Russ takes the opportunity to rush her—catching her by the arm, redirecting so the gun's pointing up at a haphazard angle instead of at Jeff, and it goes off once, twice, into the ceiling before he's got her on the ground. One quick sharp smack of her hand against the floor, and she lets the gun drop from it.

"Oh, god," Jeff says, a little blankly.

"Relationships take a lot of work on both sides," Milt tells him reassuringly, already calling it in from the desk phone.

 

 

After that it's a whole big mess. Flashing lights, a boatload of local PD, and for some reason three ambulances show up, even though nobody's hurt. Russ and Milt get checked over anyway, a process that's sped up a lot by the part where they're still in their stupid swimsuits, and then after at least half an hour, somebody finally manages to dig up some towels from somewhere, even though nobody's thought to actually like go get their bags out of the room or anything. Jesus.

So Russ ends up sitting next to Milt in the open back of one of the ambulances, with everybody else off trying to calm down the staff and the guests, even though Michelle got driven away in cuffs about twenty minutes ago.

He wraps himself up a little tighter in the huge fluffy hotel towel, and carefully doesn't make eye contact. He hasn't taken his ring off yet. Probably should soon, he thinks distantly.

"In the spirit of honesty and openness," Milt says softly, just a little wry, "I wish you'd stop doing that."

Russ clears his throat. "Doing what?"

And fuck, he wasn't going to look at Milt, he really wasn't, except now he is anyway.

Milt looks back, expression unreadable, gaze flicking back and forth over Russ's face.

"Nearly getting yourself shot for me," he says.

"Oh, come on, this was totally different," Russ says.

"Not different enough," Milt murmurs, looking away, rubbing at his forehead with his thumb.

"Well, in the spirit of honesty and openness," Russ spits, and then has to look away too. "I'm—I'm not letting you get shot again. Not on my watch. So."

Milt absorbs that silently for a beat.

And then he says slowly, thoughtfully, "I was glad when it happened, you know."

"Excuse me?"

"In the cornfield," Milt clarifies, like that's what needs clarifying. "I thought—I thought it was over. I'd finally gotten it right, and everything was going to be okay." He stops and shakes his head, rubs his face again. "I thought you—I thought you understood," he adds, unsteady.

Fuck. Russ squeezes his eyes shut. "I told you," he hears himself say hoarsely. "I meant it, in there, when I—when I told you. I fucked it up. I fucked it up, and I don't know how to fix it." He bites his lip, hard, trying to get his brain in gear; trying to figure out how to say what he needs to say, because he has to damn well get it right this time. "I didn't know what to do with it, okay? You were—you were honest with me, and I didn't know what to do with it. It was like—that thing people say about dogs that chase cars, but they wouldn't know what to do with them if they caught them.

"I'd been trying so hard to pry you open and figure you out, and then you just handed it to me. I never planned on that," he tries to explain. "I never figured you'd ever—I thought it was always going to be like that, me having to chase it, and you always—" He gestures helplessly, and jesus, this sounds so stupid, but he's got to say it. He's got to try. "Just a little further off than I could get to," he manages at last. "You know? Just a little out of reach."

He makes himself look over, and Milt's staring at him again; that startled big-eyed look, that hit-with-a-plank look, the way he looked right after Russ thanked him for that massage on multiple levels.

And god, is that ever the wrong thing to be thinking about right now—

"I'm not," Milt says at last, very low. "Further off, or out of reach. Russ—I'm not."

Russ can't help it; he laughs, a short sharp burst of it out of his aching throat. "Oh, come on," he says, and shuts his eyes. "Don't give me that shit. You must know."

"Russ," Milt says softly.

Russ squeezes his burning eyes shut tighter.

Wasn't exactly subtle, was he? Taking the excuse whenever it was handed to him, kissing Milt like that; they could have gotten away with refusing, he knew perfectly well they could have. Putting his hands on Milt like that, and all that crap he'd burst out with at group therapy—Jesus Christ, he _paid attention to the way Milt bit his coffee cups_. Like there's any way in hell Milt hasn't figured it out, by now.

"Russ," Milt says, a little more urgently. "Russ," and fuck, if he doesn't take his stupid fucking hand off Russ's fucking jaw right the fuck now, Russ is going to punch him square in the nose. "Russ, I—" he says, and then stops and swallows, so hard Russ can hear his throat click. "Thank you."

Russ feels himself go still.

"Thank you for—for your honesty," Milt murmurs, "and for beginning the journey to work through—"

"Jesus Christ, shut up," Russ says, and turns into his hand; leans into it, unseeing, desperate, and kisses him.

And it's not like the other two times, not at all. Milt makes a soft intent sound against his mouth, doesn't freeze or tense up—he tightens his grip on Russ's face, spreads that broad hand out across Russ's cheek and _licks_ Russ's lip, and Russ makes kind of a stupid embarrassing gasping noise, and then they're really seriously sucking face, no holds barred.

What the fuck.

"What the fuck," Russ says, once he's managed to tear loose far enough to.

"Russ, you have to understand," Milt says, and god, it's hard to focus on what he's saying when his mouth is all red and shiny and right there, but Russ tries his best. "I'm—I try hard, all the time, to be better."

"No, I know," Russ says impatiently, "I remember."

"To be considerate," Milt adds, thumbing absently at the corner of Russ's mouth. "To be—to not just take things because I want them. To not just _do_ things because I want—"

Oh.

"Okay, listen up," Russ says, "because I'm only going to tell you this once."

Milt blinks at him, immediately projecting obedient attentiveness.

"Do me, Milt," Russ enunciates, very precisely; and Milt laughs, startled, and then lets Russ pull him down and kiss him all over again.

 

 


End file.
